We can't be perfect all the time

Our first semi-disappointment with the Apartment Garden has come up involving the lettuce.

A few things are going on here:

- The lettuce will grow to about the length you see here in the picture: 3-4 inches and then just stop and then croak. Dead. Poor little lettuces.

- Obviously we've begun a crop of mushrooms in here. Implying dampness, perhaps?

So what's the deal, yo?

I consulted the wise Momma of mine, she has been gardening far longer than I've been on this planet. Here's her take:















You can see in the picture that the soil line is about four inches below the top of the pot. I didn't have a whole lot of dirt so I tried to be conservative and not use as much. Turns out that was a bad idea.


What my brilliant idea caused was a lack of air circulation around the seedlings. My Mom thought damping-off disease may have cropped-up causing the little leaflings to wither and die before they had a chance to grow up. This also explains the whole mushroom issue. The lack of air circulation caused a damper-than-ideal environment helping to grow the mushrooms, as well as the fungus causing damping-off disease.
I do remember the first week or so that I transplanted the seedlings, it wasn't very sunny and I'm sure that helped keep the soil nice and wet.
Any other ideas? Share away!

Luckily, I did not put all my lettuces in one basket.




I put many seedlings in their own pots, with sufficient soil, and they are doing quite fine. This one here, (and plenty more! As many as she wants, really), is waiting to go to its new home with Unspeakable Visions.






On a much happier note, the Apartment Garden is not down and out! Our radishes are doing so well! Much better than I had hoped! I'll be able to eat some in the next few days.
The lobelia is starting to poke out some beautiful purple buds, I just can't wait to enjoy that wonderful trailing plant!
I have already used tons of chives, cress and thyme. What a wonderful thing to have a grocery store on your porch!
Head over to Flickr to enjoy some more success stories!

Knockout!

Votes were counted, briberies were offered but refused, and the results are in!

Winner of the 1st Annual 2009 Who Has The Most Diesel Seedlings Contest:


























Any who have followed the travels of these seedlings should not be surprised by the winner. Jiff's pods prevail! Frankly coconut fiber, you suck:

















These pictures were taken on the same day. The coconut seedlings are yellowed and droopy while Jiff's pods are lush and green.
What you typically see before transplanting a healthy seedling is a well established root system around the medium you use.

Healthy rooted seedling

I do not have a picture of the coconut fiber seedling but when I took it out of the six-pack the medium crumbled away. The roots were growing straight down and through the bottom. So most of the root was wallowing on the plastic bottom instead of in some nice, helpful dirt. It makes sense they would be so yellow and unhealthy looking.


In other news...

I embarked on quite the lettuce seedling thinning process recently

















I had a ton of 1" pots and old Tupperware laying around so that made for easy temp. storage containers. I plan to give away many of the seedlings, I have plenty to keep for myself.
See the finished products here, and here.

It has been a busy few weeks over in the E.S. Garden. Enjoy the pictures of the flowers, they are especially wonderful. Thanks to the boy for taking lovely pictures, much more pro-fes-sion-al than myself. I've been over there quite a bit planting, weeding, mowing, and planning. We've had more greens than we know what to do with. The asparagus continues to grow enough so we're picking it every few days. We've had a taste of the radishes, as well, and wow are they little fire balls. I'm attempting to grow some apartment garden radishes, let's hope they can still enjoy a more confined living arrangement.

As you can see we've been very busy over here at The Pale Gardener!

Happy Day!

In approximately 7.5 hours I will be sitting down to my A&P II final for the semester. After that, freedom until August.
I do love school, don't get me wrong, I especially love what I'm doing now. But...it will be nice to be able to come home after work, not plan out three meals for the day at 630AM, and of course, attend to my apartment garden. Which by the way, is coming along quite nicely. The sunflowers are taking right off and I even have some chamomile popping up!
I planted some cress and chives over the weekend. The cress package was not lying when it said it was fast growing, the plants are an inch tall already!
E.S. Garden is also booming. The asparagus is growing like a weed! We have to pick it a few times a week! Boy do I love that asparagus...makes your pee smell funny though.
OK TMI, Jess.

Pics coming soon!

Til then, wish me luck!

Jiffs V. Burps - Round Dos

Ah Spring is fully upon us here in Upstate NY. And it is lovely. Last weekend was way up in the 80's...a bit warm if you ask me. But it was a great weekend to play outside study for exams. Yes, that is plural. I had two exams in one week in one class. Gotta love it. But enough academics.

I am happy to say the seedlings are doing great! I did not mention yet that some of the seeds I planted, I planted on a whim hoping they'd germinate because...well...they are three years old. Which in seed years ehhh can go either way. The old haggards include: thyme, chamomile, and sweet marjoram. The sweet marjoram is doing great, the thyme is doing so-so and the chamomile is either taking its sweet time or it's a no-show.


From left to right:
Rows 1-2 - lavender - coming along slowly, but looking good.
Rows 3-4 - lobelia - sapphire trailing - exploding! I have to trim them back because there are far too many in each cell
Rows 5-6 - sweet marjoram - other than the sunflowers, these are doing the best! Who knew! Now I have to figure out some recipes using sweet marjoram...
Rows 7-8 - lobelia - crystal palace - also doing wonderfully. Will have to trim these back a bit too. Damn you teeny tiny seeds!
Row 9 - thyme - I'll be able to get a few plants out of these.

What you can't see on the end are the Mexican sunflowers, and the chamomile, which isn't even worth showing because it's not doing a damn thing.

Let's take a look at Burpee shall wee?





From left to right:

Row 1 - thyme - a few sprouts are up, still holding out it will fair well.
Row 2 - lobelia crystal palace - chugging right along. They're not getting leggy yet, which is nice.
Row 3-4 - sweet marjoram - man, I'm going to have a lot of this herb.
Row 5-6 - lavender - also not doing too great in this medium so I'm hoping it's just taking its time coming up.
Row 7 - lobelia - sapphire trailing - 2 thumbs up.
Row 8-9 - a picture of the chamomile not doing jack.
Row 10-11 - new plantings! I planted gaillardia in here. They are doing just great. Pretty perennials they are.
Row 12 - another row of Mexican sunflowers - we'll have a lot of these too!

OK, now that we've taken a look at our seedlings. Who's in the lead this week?
I would say Jiffs still has a good lead. Worth noting, however, is that though Jiffs is beating Burps, both are doing about as well, comparatively. That is, the lobelia in each are doing well, the chamomile in both are sucking, the sweet marjoram in both are doing well but are a bit leggy. And so on, so they are growing at a steady, constant pace as individual mediums. Aww, I've raised such independent seedlings!

I've updated Flickr with some more seedling photos.

Next on The Pale Gardener: updates on our repots! Who gets their own room first?

Jiffs V. Burps - Round 1

So, as luck would have it, I have about three weeks left in my semester which entails three exams in one class - two of which are next week. And what do I get? I get sick for the entire week prior to said exams. So here I am, day five of feeling like I got run over by truck, in a weird coma from NyQuil (I never could handle that stuff) and certainly not able to focus on anything in a textbook about the digestive system.
I can't do nothing even when my brain is about ten steps behind the rest of my body. So I thought I would try to handle this blog, it requires no foot movement, generally...

...left hand...right hand...space bar...


I am happy to say that our seedlings are doing just great, they survived their lonely weekend last week and we have a clear lead developing in our contest!















The cheaper, more traditional potting mix prevails so far! Since I planted so many different things in the same flat you can see there are many pods still void of green. They'll fill in soon. The missing pods are what you see on the right, the Mexican sunflower really took off! I already have some transplanted into tubs that are sitting on my porch now. Take a look.

And how did our coconut fiber friends fair?
So far...
























So unless ol' coconut makes quite a comeback, looks like Jiffy may just win!

Update on the E.S. Garden too!

Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for any parts of this that make absolutely no sense. I blame it on the drugs.